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Tesla’s new pictures are leaked onto the internet and there’s a bit of a flap about if they’re supposed to be out there or not. I’m in the camp that any publicity they get is good publicity. If they weren’t shooting for the ultra-luxury market, I would probably own one.

The car (designated Tesla Model S) looks good, but like everything else they build it feels like something else. This time it’s not quite as much of a copy-paste job as the Tesla Roadster (which is easily mistaken for a Lotus or MR2), but I can’t shake the idea that it’s a four door Aston Martin.

In light of comments here and comments made on other sites, I feel like I should post why I think it’s an Aston Martin.

Tesla S

Aston Martin Rapide

The Rapide is a concept car, but it’s in production enough that it’s been seen in Germany. The things to pay attention to are the shape of the doors and the overall proportion of the car. The comments section has some further links for the car buffs.

He wrote a resignation letter and told Obama to fuck off and die, and he did it in such a way he’s putting Obama’s pariah in the line of fire.

Jake DeSantis, an AIG executive, was so fed up with Obama’s administration that he said he’s donating 100% of his compensation to people “affected by the downturn”. If Obama continues the plan of taxing executives 100%, then Obama now has to go after charity for that money. WHAT WILL OBAMA DO?

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Every time I see this I roll my eyes. On one hand, I empathies with the idea that crimes shouldn’t go unopposed like this. I also understand that if someone is willing to use deadly force for a happy meal and the $500 that was in the register, or whatever, then a life is worth about a whopper value meal and $500 to them. In other words, life is cheap enough that someone may very well get shot.

On the other hand, you’re having a shoot-out over a burger king. You’re risking your life for a fast-food joint.

They’ve jerked me around quite a bit already, this is the staw that tore it for me. Me and my wife are probably going to Wachovia (ATMs everywhere) or Citibank (rave reviews, no ATMs).

Me and my wife knew we were going to overdraft the checking account this pay period when the jeep broke down. She ended up spending a bit more than she should have buying food and whatnot while I tried to get out of work and drive the hour and a half needed to perform the rescue.

I ended up calling the insurance company along the way and our agent said he couldn’t wait another week to cash the check or it would count as nonpayment, but he would wait to drop the check into the accounts receivable box until after EOB on Friday so it would run Monday. It would be marked paid as Friday, he explained, but wouldn’t be scanned until Saturday, then it would be cashed Monday. My wife gets paid Wednesday, we figured we would eat the overdraft fee ($30) and chalk it up to taking it out of God’s face when we get to heaven over the jeep breaking down on the furthest trip she had to make that day.

I pull up the statement today and instead of the -$40 I expected to see, I see I have -$300. Identity theft? Moon phase? Secret Jewish conspiracy against Ron Paul supporters?

I call up the bank.

The first lady I talked to was polite and patient, but “these are legitimate charges” was her script. (I swear to god she was reading something, I wondered if they were prompted by computers). I asked to speak to her supervisor.

Her supervisor was less polite, but patient, and insisted they were legit charges. Her boss was “out of the office” until I started cursing at her after about 15 minutes. Then suddenly her boss came back.

Her boss was neither polite nor patient and insisted that the charges were legitimate and anything else was chalked up to “everyone can have their opinion”. Which, I reminded her, all business works on the opinion of what’s a good deal, and my opinion currently is I’m going to take my mortgage and bank accounts somewhere else. What could she do for me? Jack. But she asked, “Why do you feel you should get the money back?”

“Well, it’s really simple. I knew I was going to overdraft the account and I did the responsible thing and tried to get the check cashing date done later for the check that was going to break it. My insurance company was nice enough to delay cashing the check because they want to keep their customers. The odd man out here is Sovereign, who not only isn’t willing to help, but also reconciles checks in the wrong order.”
“What do you mean?”
“I made these charges…” (there’s 10 charges to autozone while I bought plugs, batteries, etc) “…before State Farm cashed the check expecting them to clear in the same order. When you cash checks out of order, you destroy the budget. God forbid I was a business or these were medical expenses.”
“Well, everyone else does it that way too -”
“and to top it off, two months ago you did this to me again and told me you run deposits last. You took probably 30% of a deposit check for my consulting because the expenses for equipment got rolled into a different account before the deposits to cover it did.”
“We do deposits last, and we cash the biggest check first. It’s bank policy for your protection…”
“Know what? Don’t worry about it. My policy for my protection is to take my business somewhere else that understands the financial crisis and basic concepts like a budget.”

I realize I spent most of the time talking over their district manager. I ended up hanging up the phone, but if you’re wondering why the world is screwed up for the everyman, it starts at the banks policies.

Now, I need a new bank. And the requirements are that the bank does check processing in chronological order. Post your suggestions.